§ MR. MARKHAMI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to a paper recently read before the Institution of Mining Engineers by Mr. F. Fox, M.I.C.E., and to the discussion thereon reported in Vol. 26 of the Transactions of the Society, and to the statement of this gentleman that, under the present conditions in the mines of England, one out of every five miners working rock drills in advance headings were doomed to die every year from phthisis, and that the dust from dry drillings was the chief cause of this mortality; whether he is aware that during the driving of the Simplon Tunnel, though the tunnel has reached a total length of 10¼ miles, at a depth of 9,630 yards, with a temperature ranging from 97 to 131 degrees Fahrenheit, not a single case of phthisis has occurred, owing to the absence of dry drilling; and if, under these circumstances, he will put into operation the powers he possesses under the Coal Mines Regulation Act, and prohibit the use of mechanical drills operated on the dry system, permitting only the system of wet drilling.
§ *MR. AKERS-DOUGLASThis is a matter on which a close watch has been kept by my Department; and some time ago I referred it to Dr. Haldane, who, in conjunction with Mr. Martin, an inspector of mines, and Mr. Thomas, manager of Dolcoath Mine, has made a thorough inquiry into it. Their Report has been presented to Parliament and will be issued, I hope, this week. I shall proceed at once to consider the question of proposing special rules to carry out the recommendations contained in the Report